XX.

   Then slowly climb the many-winding way,
   And frequent turn to linger as you go,
   From loftier rocks new loveliness survey,
   And rest ye at ‘Our Lady’s House of Woe;’
   Where frugal monks their little relics show,
   And sundry legends to the stranger tell: 
   Here impious men have punished been; and lo,
   Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell,
In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell.

XXI.

   And here and there, as up the crags you spring,
   Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path;
   Yet deem not these devotion’s offering —
   These are memorials frail of murderous wrath;
   For wheresoe’er the shrieking victim hath
   Poured forth his blood beneath the assassin’s knife,
   Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath;
   And grove and glen with thousand such are rife
Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life!

XXII.

   On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath,
   Are domes where whilom kings did make repair;
   But now the wild flowers round them only breathe: 
   Yet ruined splendour still is lingering there. 
   And yonder towers the prince’s palace fair: 
   There thou, too, Vathek!  England’s wealthiest son,
   Once formed thy Paradise, as not aware
   When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done,
Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun.

XXIII.

   Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan. 
   Beneath yon mountain’s ever beauteous brow;
   But now, as if a thing unblest by man,
   Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou! 
   Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow
   To halls deserted, portals gaping wide;
   Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how
   Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied;
Swept into wrecks anon by Time’s ungentle tide.

XXIV.

   Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened! 
   Oh! dome displeasing unto British eye! 
   With diadem hight foolscap, lo! a fiend,
   A little fiend that scoffs incessantly,
   There sits in parchment robe arrayed, and by
   His side is hung a seal and sable scroll,
   Where blazoned glare names known to chivalry,
   And sundry signatures adorn the roll,
Whereat the urchin points, and laughs with all his soul.

XXV.

   Convention is the dwarfish demon styled
   That foiled the knights in Marialva’s dome: 
   Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled,
   And turned a nation’s shallow joy to gloom. 
   Here Folly dashed to earth the victor’s